Ancient Aliens & JFK by Mike Bara

 

Mike Bara may be knowledgable regarding NASA and Ancient Aliens but he doesn’t know Beans about the Kennedy assassination.

If you have ever watched Ancient Aliens on the History Channel you’ve seen Mike Bara along with other experts giving their opinions on how aliens arrived on earth in the far away past and advanced human evolution and technology.  It makes for entertaining television and the show makes it apparent that sometime in ancient human history there is evidence of what appears to be high technology and engineering being used at a time when civilization was supposed to be in a primitive state.  So the Star People came and gave us free advice on how to climb down from the trees and into the savanna.   

Bara is a retired engineer and has written numerous books on this subject and NASA space programs.  Most of his books bears the “Ancient Aliens” title (here, there and everywhere!).  He hosts a 6 day a week channel on Youtube and is a conspiratorialist with some reservations.  For example he is a supporter of the Apollo Moon landings but he swerves into the John Kennedy Jr. conspiracy that he faked his death to escape being murdered by the Deep State (a popular theory among the Q followers).  To someday reappear like the Second Coming of Jesus.  And do what precisely?  So Bara is reasonable and then sometimes not.

Mike Bara’s main thesis in this work is that President Kennedy had knowledge of contact with Aliens and was planning to share this knowledge with the Soviets as a peace entreaty.  This in turn sent the President on a collation course with the Deep State and ended his life.  Farfetched to say the least.

It is interesting that while Bara does conclude there was a conspiracy in the death of JFK and resorts to using the same old tired arguments of the Lone Nut crowd. Which in turn, harkens from the easily discredited Warren Commission Report. Bara follows the well trodden path of Oswald being a good marksman to the Magic Bullet Theory. I shall explore this in greater detail below and show why he is wrong on all of these matters.

MJ-12 Documents

One of the controversial issues in UFO research is the release of alleged documents about the MJ-12 group.  One day in 1984 a UFO researcher Jaimie Shandera checked the mail and found a package containing a set of microfilm documents from an anonymous source.  The Majestic 12 legend was born and launched thousands of arguments both pro and con.  Now that the dust has settled down a bit, the MJ-12 docs are considered a hoax. (For more on this you can check out Seamas Coogan’s Magnus Opus, JFK and the Majestic Papers: The History of a Hoax.  LINK)

Mike Bara seems reluctant to let it go.  As he said on page 38, “I am less concerned with the question of authenticity than I am with the content.”  He should be!  He ponders what if the documents have traces of truth in them (the 12 members were real men at least) and then precedes thru the chapter to discuss connections to the documents as if they were real.  Such as he does on page 42 when he suggests that JFK knew of aliens. “But if Kennedy was taken out of the loop on what MJ-12 knew, how then was he even aware of an alien presence?”  Bara wants to believe, regardless.  Most of chapter 2 flows like this and the rest of the book will feature similar confusing episodes.  

Nevertheless, Bara’s reasoning that JFK was aware of aliens wanting to share this with a Cold War enemy ultimately set in motion his death, is totally absurd.  Kennedy had a multitude of enemies that hated him worse than speculating about flying saucers.

  

The Magic Bullet Theory one more time…

Also known as the “Magic Bullshit Theory” was developed when the Warren Commission discovered they had more bullets flying in Dealey Plaza than Oswald could have fired.  So their lawyers created the fiction of one bullet wounding two men.  The problem was the shooter was firing from a high elevation while Kennedy’s wounds were low to high for the single bullet to allegedly traverse his body and hit Governor Connelly, besides the trajectory angles being incorrect.  It was a political solution to the problem.  There could only be one gunman.

But there is much wrong with it and too much to go into here and Bara’s response to it is no different than what a standard Warren Report defender would say.  Probably the most complete rebuttal comes from the testimony collected by the Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB) in 1996.  Namely the testimony under oath of four autopsy witnesses.  They were FBI special agents James Sibert and Francis O’Neill, and autopsy technicians James Jenner and Paul O’Conner.  All four men testify witnessing at the autopsy the sounding probe (flexible aluminum rod—used to trace bullets through bodies) inserted into Kennedy’s back.  The probe went a few inches in and downward.  It was not a pass-through.  So there is no exiting bullet through Kennedy’s throat.  Bara has shown in his sloppy research that he knows nothing about this and does great disservice to his readers by ignoring this important fact. 

Likewise for his handling for the CE-399 the so called “pristine” bullet found on Connelly’s stretcher and was alleged to have passed through two men breaking bones along the way.  Of course it is not pristine and shows marked flattening on one side.  Bara believes this bullet could have done all the damage it did, especially to Connelly breaking three ribs and fracturing the radial bone in the wrist and still remain largely undeformed.    

As I stated in one of my posts regarding this issue:  “The Warren Commission in 1964 tasked ballistic experts doctors Dolce and Light to conduct tests on cadavers using Oswald’s rifle at the U. S. Army Edgewood Arsenal.  As Dr. Dolce stated in an interview in 1986, each of the ten test fired bullets were in his words, “markably deformed.”  Dr. Dolce was not called to give testimony to the Warren Commission and his findings were buried in a report, published in March of 1965, that was classified “confidential” for 8 years before being placed in the NARA.”

Mostly likely CD-399 was a low velocity bullet with not enough grains in the shell hence the shallow impact.  It’s the one that fell out. Bara while writing of the magical properties of CD-399, failed to mention the numerous bullet fragments found in Governor Connelly’s body and also in the interior of the limousine.  One fragment he carried in his left thigh for the rest of his life.  As can be plainly seen, CD-399 is not fragmented.

Officer Tippit as Badge Man

This has to be the most unfortunate part of the book.  In my study of the Tippet killing I have never found anything that suggests he was the grassy knoll shooter.  Bara hangs his theory on the scant evidence of a Jack White digital reinterpretation of the Mary Moorman photo.  The famous Badge Man image cloaked in shadows on the grassy knoll.  There are various versions of this online and they all have one thing in common.  They are blurry.  Yet somehow Mike Bara finds enough data in the image to confidently state it was Tippit there and he was firing the fatal shot.

Due to Tippit’s movements and behavior that day, Tippit did not have the time to arrive in Dealey Plaza in order to assassinate the President.  He would need to be there early, at least by noon.  The President was killed at 12:30.  At noon Tippit was called to Hodge’s SuperMart to arrest a woman for shoplifting.  He was 7 miles away from Dealey Plaza at that point.  He would need to drive the woman back to headquarters to be booked, wasting valuable time if he was going to be an assassin.  No witnesses saw him in the Dealey Plaza location.

Some have suggested that Tippit may have been involved in the outer edges of the conspiracy.  His actions on the 22nd were peculiar as documented by Myers, Armstrong, McBride etc.  Tippit that morning was racing here and there.  At one point he rushed into the Tiptop record store and made a frantic call to someone who never picked up.  Whatever it was he did not display the actions of a normal police officer on patrol.  He was acting nervous and agitated.  Was his job to meet up with Oswald and take him out?  That seems far more plausible than looking at a blurry Photoshopped image and coming to a conclusion.

Officer J. D. Tippit as Badge Man is another poorly researched area of Bara’s book and a huge insult to the Tippit family.  All Bara has is a blurry picture.  Even the minimal facts I have presented here are not in Bara’s book.  Whatever Tippit’s involvement was that fateful day, he does not deserve this.

Conclusion

Overall, the Kennedy assassination chapters in Ancient Aliens & JFK are flawed.  The rest, including the secret space program, moon landings, etc, are competently researched and presented.  Sometimes as a researcher you can get into fire fighter mode.  So much incorrect information flows around the subject you are researching that the need arises to stamp it out.  It’s a constant process of reeducating and setting the record straight.  Mike Bara’s book is an example of that.  Obviously, this is not a serious look into who JFK’s killer was or other aspects of the assassination. The absurd notion that JFK had inside info on Aliens and what they are doing on earth is a joke. Bara is trading on the Ancient Aliens TV show name for traction.  It’s a pot boiler.  Reader beware.

Notes

p.100, Oswald was court martialed twice in the Marines.  Not three times as Bara wrote.

p.103, James Jesus Angleton was Associate Deputy Director of Operations for Counterintelligence.  Not the Deputy Director of the CIA as Bara states.  This error implies Angleton was #2 at the CIA.  He was not.

p.107, Bara calls Oswald a good marksman.  He was starting out but faded.  His first marksman test was excellent.  His score was lowered in the second test and barely qualified in the third test.  After the Marines during the Russia phase, when Oswald went hunting with friends he was loaned the shotgun—for obvious reasons. 

A reviewer on Amazon S. Harris, charged that some pages and at least one whole chapter of Ancient Aliens & JFK, are cut and pasted from Bara’s other books such as Dark Mission and Who Mourns For Apollo.  As Harris said  “Self-plagiarism is no crime…” yes, just the habit of a lazy writer.  As I said previously, a pot boiler. (Highly recommended you read the review on Amazon.  The reviewer points to other factual errors not mentioned in my review.)

Researcher Jones Harris once told me his theory that the grassy knoll shooter was Roscoe White.  Roscoe was former military intelligence.  He was seen walking around Dealey Plaza wearing a Dallas police officers uniform but not wearing the required hat.  But he wasn’t officially a police officer.  He wouldn’t attend police training till early December of 1963.  He was working for them as a clerk at this time.  As told to me by Harris, only those people that had completed training would be allowed to wear the uniform of the Dallas police department.  Could Roscoe White be Badge Man?  I suppose it makes for a better story to pin the crime on a more well known man rather than one who is not.

Sources

Why Officer Tippit Stopped His Killer by Jack Myers.  A very detailed and accurate account on the Tippit murder and Tippit’s movements the day of the assassination.

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/why-officer-tippit-stopped-his-killer

John Armstrong’s detailed account of the movements of J. D. Tippit on 11/22/63.

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/harvey-lee-and-tippit-a-new-look-at-the-tippit-shooting

JFK and the Majestic Papers: The History of a Hoax, Introduction by Seamas Coogan.  All nine articles are listed on this page.

https://kennedysandking.com/john-f-kennedy-articles/jfk-and-the-majestic-papers-the-history-of-a-hoax-introduction

Briefer account here by Philip Coppens:

https://www.eyeofthepsychic.com/majestic12/

Book.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1939149991/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

JFK and UFOs

At last, a good piece of reporting on the issue of JFK and what, if ever, he had to do with UFOs has been completed by Seamus Coogan at CTKA.net. Called, “JFK and the Majestic Papers: The History of a Hoax”, Coogan creates a comprehensive set of essays exploring the subject and exposing the mythology and history of ufology and what President John Kennedy’s interaction was with the phenomena. Not to spoil it for readers, but let’s just say JFK had other pressing matters as Head of State. The essay(s) made up of an Introduction, two Preambles, six Parts and a Conclusion, leave no stone left unturned.

A great read. Check out out HERE.


Sources
http://ctka.net/2011/MJ%2012%20intro_Alien%20Dulles.html

The Blabber Mouth Theory

“Probably no one seriously involved in investigating UFO reports has escaped the hydra-headed debunking machine and its many busy attendants.”

Bud Hopkins

“In Washington they say, if two people know, it can’t be a secret.”

John B. Alexander

Though I only have a casual interest in the UFO phenomena I was intrigued with a recent broadcast (2/20/11) on Coast to Coast AM, hosted by George Knapp with retired Colonel John B. Alexander and his new book, UFOs: Myths, Conspiracies, and Realities. A lot of his comments reminded me of the Warren Commission’s defenders and their arguments against conspiracy. Col. Alexander, a career military officer, was involved with intelligence and many esoteric endeavors such as the “men staring at goats” experiment and other government program weirdness. Along the way, he got an interest in UFOs and was allowed to launch a study group. Yes, the Army version of the X-Files! He interviewed everybody within the National Security index and those in the military-industrial side as well. Alexander comes across as affable, very knowledgable and sincere, open minded with an air of authority on which he speaks.

However, his conclusions are forgone; while Alexander admits there are solid cases such as the Phoenix Lights and Rendlesham Forest incident he says there is no formal government policy to cover-up the UFOs. (I wonder if he would assume the same about conspiracy with JFK’s death?) When it comes to the realities, the main stories of the lore are the myths. There is no perceived threat to National Security so no need to get involved. In other words, I’ve looked into it and there is nothing to it–trust me–don’t worry your little head over it.

A closer examination of his statements reveals him to be another servant of the National Security State with the same old flat arguments. In many ways he maneuvers like any Kennedy conspiracy debunker, though a more gentlemanly version of one. He doesn’t resort to Bugliosi-style sarcasm and verbal abuse. Gosh, it would be nice to see a JFK anti-conspiracy debunker with this much class and seemingly fair mindedness. He portrays the man of the Open Mind though all the while, we know he’s not going to go along with any major assertions. The Phoenix Lights event he’ll acknowledge is a real phenomena but ultimately a mystery requiring more investigation. The major cannons of UFOlogy, such as the MJ-12 docs and the Roswell crash, are dismissed as hoaxes. Come what may, virtually no Warren Commission supporter will walk this fine a line. It’s all or nothing with that gang.

Everything In Washington Leaks
“Everything in Washington leaks,” says Alexander. Here is ground that has been plowed too many times. The good Colonel resembles a Warren Commission acolyte. How many times has this slogan been trotted out? Okay, how does the CIA, NSA, DIA, ONI and many other agencies stay in business? They should be gone by now if they had this many leakers. This old, tired, “nobody can keep a secret” nonsense is the classic argument against these controversies and has long been used against the JFK conspiracy researchers. Ironic that it comes from Colonel Alexander, himself being an intelligence officer with access to classified information. Has he blabbed anything? How insulting a question! That is wrong in so many different ways I could write a whole blog posting on that issue alone.

In the National Security State secrecy is the foundation of the security. In Colonel L. Flecher Prouty’s books, The Secret Team and JFK, compartmentalization is the key to containing and maintaining secret operations. Prouty would be in the loop since he was the liaison officer between the CIA and the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon. He’s one of the insiders that let us know how the National Security State functions. One can see quite a difference between the two Colonels and how they view this issue. Prouty on one hand illustrates the need for concealment of information and operations and the processes and procedures that make it work; Alexander acts like there are no methods or procedures in place at all or if there are, they are useless. Because of this, I sense a great deal more truthfulness with Prouty. Alexander acts like these things are boring and ho-hum, striped of mystery and intrigue. He knows better.

The Blabber Mouth Theory
Another issue Col. Alexander breaches is that there isn’t any secrets that are “Above Top Secret” that the President as Commander in Chief isn’t privy to. There is if you simply don’t tell him! Kennedy ordered the CIA to stand down on assassination attempts on Castro but they didn’t–nor did they tell Kennedy anything about their ongoing operations against Cuba or for that matter what they were doing in running all military operations in Vietnam until the Marines took over in 1965. And most telling is when Jimmy Carter asked for the CIA’s UFO information and the director, at the time George Bush, told him to go to Congress. In brief, he was dead-ended. So was Bill Clinton’s early AG, Webster Hubble which Mr. Clinton asked him to look into the Kennedy assassination. He ran into the wall too. Alexander makes no mention of Carter’s run-in with the Secret Team as he wants everything to be normal to the point of dullness. Of course it’s not.

I once worked with a guy once that worked in the inner halls of government. He knew everybody from Ronald Reagan to Linda Tripp. And he admitted there were levels of classification so high the President wasn’t privy to them. He thought it was a good thing. I of course, did not. To witness Alexander deny this is quite telling and lends plausibility to his critics that he is a disinformation agent.

Col. Alexander was so adamant about people not keeping secrets George Knapp asked him, “So you’re of the belief that nobody can keep a secret...even by the military?” That’s when Alexander responds with the quote above about two people knowing something then it’s no longer a secret, which is ridiculous. One of the main jobs of intelligence operatives, both military and civilian, is the collecting and keeping of secrets. He knows it and backpedals a bit by saying that a secret can be kept for a “short period of time.” Perhaps he thought better of impugning the integrity of those people working in intelligence that work hard at keeping information under wraps and in some cases put their lives on the line to do so.

Besides, there is a certain prestige associated with keep information concealed. I’ve signed three nondisclosure agreements in the course of my professional life. I’ve never spilled the beans on any of them, even now with two of those projects no longer operational. In the military there is little prestige as violating a signed oath is rewarded with prison time, as the Navy enlisted men found out after the John Kennedy’s autopsy. They all had to sign nondisclosure agreements and were all read the riot act if they ever breathed a word of what they saw and experienced that night. (Fortunately, those former Navy personnel that were interviewed for the ARRB in the late 1990s were given a waiver. That’s how we know about the ordering of the signed secrecy agreements.)

Be that as it may, the Blabber Mouth Theory holds no value and is a weak argument that is constantly used against conspiracy advocates. People do conspire, that is why it’s criminalized.

The Debunking Way
UFO investigator Bud Hopkins in his article, Deconstructing the Debunkers: A Response, made the following point:


“It’s long been understood that debunking and skepticism are two very different things, the former, an artifact of rigid ideology and the latter an objective, scientifically-inclined position.”

That is what it appears. Though over time it seems that both debunking and skepticism has involved into the same thing. A rigid mindset whose purpose is to scoff, downplay and discredit controversial claims and beliefs. In this case, controversial since it doesn’t go along with the flow. Such as when people don’t believe what government investigators tell them about a plane crash (flight 800), an assassination (JFK, RFK, MLK, MX), a bombing (Murrah Building) and a terrorist attack (9-11). The Ruling Class does not like us exposing their deceit. So on the offensive they go, either from volunteers or paid shills. People like skeptic Michael Shermer publish a magazine to support the status quo and make a career out of it. Whatever the government says is the gospel for these people. Only the critics get scanned for their claims or errors. And of course to the Shermer crowd, the critics are always wrong.

So debunking and skepticism is really a means to an end. The way the Ruling Class defends its turf. Just say the words, you don’t have to mean them. They will sound good. In the mix, real history and what actually happened gets lost in a maze of trails. It’s lensed through the words of the winners and the losers have to fight for shelf space. With the rise of the Internet everybody has the ability to self-publish and self-broadcast. Now both sides can square off and do battle for what represents the truth. One good thing is they will no longer be able to edit the tape so Orville Nix is heard saying that he heard shots coming from the building and not the grassy knoll–and it was the knoll he heard shots from–and he is left with no platform to refute the deception.

It’s so nice to be truly free. While it lasts.


Sources
Prouty, L, Fletcher, The Secret Team and JFK; Marvin, Daniel, Expendable Elite

Coast To Coast AM Radio Show
http://www.coasttocoastam.com

Bud Hopkins, Deconstructing the Debunkers: A Response
http://www.intrudersfoundation.org/Deconstruct.html